🔔 ​A welcome return of high street names to the best buy tables

For those of you who may be nervous to put your money in the hands of a provider you’ve never heard of, there is some good news. Recently, some more high street names have been appearing in the best buy savings tables. 

And although they aren’t the stalwart high street brands such as NatWest, Lloyds or Barclays, they are generally building societies, brands you have probably heard of and better still they’re offering competitive rates. 

As you might expect from a building society, some also offer branch or postal options to open and manage the accounts. 

At the time of writing, Skipton Building Society’s new Triple Access Saver is paying a joint market-leading rate of 0.60% which is available to open via the post, telephone and in branch as well as online. 

The Coventry Building Society has also made an appearance with it Limited Access Saver (Online) (5), paying 0.55%, although as the names suggests is can only be opened online. That said, there is also another version of the account that can be opened by post, by telephone and in branch, with a slightly lower, but still competitive rate of 0.50% AER.

Both of these account allow limited withdrawals, so are not true easy access accounts as such, but rather are restricted easy access accounts. 

Leeds Building Society also has a couple of easy access accounts paying 0.50% AER, one of which has restricted access and one that doesn’t. 

Even the UKs biggest building society, Nationwide, has an easy access account paying a reasonably competitive rate of 0.45% - although this is only available online, and only allows three penalty free withdrawals in the first 12 months. 

Unfortunately this high street exposure doesn’t extend to the fixed term bond markets, as the best rates tend to be with lesser known challenger banks such as Gatehouse Bank, Zopa and United Trust Bank. 

Ultimately, you need to be confident that your money is safe and if that means using a provider that you are familiar with, at least there are some competitive easy access accounts to choose from. 

But, remember that as long as the provider you choose is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FCA) and PRA and therefore part of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), you can rest assured that any cash up to the FSCS limit of £85,000 per person, per banking licence, is just as safe with a name you don’t know, as it would be with a name you do. 

For more information about the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, download our FSCS Licence Information Guide. And on our Best Buy tables, we also indicate if the provider you are considering has its own licence or shares a licence, so take a look.